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"Lady Mary is exactly the same as when I first knew her. a complete doll." "Darnell told me he met Randal the other night at supper at some man's rooms, where they had songs and cards; and I am sorry to tell you Randal played, for I fancy the play was high

"Indeed, I am greatly distressed," cried Grace, "I must speak to Randal; and yet I cannot say I heard it from you." "No, Has he been drawing heavily on you lately?"

"He has not. You know he gets all the money he wants from my mother." "And you make up her deficiencies, I understand," said Max.

"No, not that. Randal has been very prudent lately."

"He has been winning then," returned Max; "the reverse will come. If this is not put a stop to, he will ruin you, Grace."

"I will do what I can. I did hope he would never touch a card again.”

"Then hope told a flattering tale. I wish we could get him out of London. He is getting into a bad set."

I wish oh, how I wish we could!" said Grace, clasping her hands. "Ah, Max! whenever I see you together, I always feel humiliated!"

"Do not let such thoughts cross your mind. I have forgotten all about past unpleasantness. Well, I must leave you, Grace; I dare say you are wishing me away. We are close friends, then, for the present, and I suppose I must let the future take care of itself?"

"I think so, Max."

Once more he took her hand, holding it for a moment, and then turned away with a sigh.

When he was quite gone, Grace drew nearer the fire, and sat still and motionless for a long while in the gathering gloom, thinking-thinking. She felt very kindly and tenderly towards Max. She seemed to understand the picture he gave of his own nature; she was heartily sorry she could not love him, and then she thought of Maurice, and her heart went out to him with such boundless trust and tenderness. He would have had no hesitation, had he been in Max Frere's place; he would have been unmoved by any small ambitions. But he was gone; probably she would never see him more. He had never answered Randal's letter, written nearly a year and a half ago; and Jimmy rarely had a line and yet he loved her. Would it be her destiny after all to marry Max Frere? He was per

severing and resolute, and she was conscious of a certain power in him. For the moment, she felt helpless and depressed; but to-morrow

"Grace, are you here alone in the dark? I can scarcely see," said Mrs. Frere, coming in from her walk; and Grace came back to the comfortable present.

The following Sunday, Jimmy Byrne, who regularly dined at Osborne Villas on that day, was a little late, and of course full of apologies.

"Who should I meet coming along by Hyde Park Gardens but Mr. Maxwell Frere! He was mighty civil, and made me go in with him to his father's house

a palace, faith! no less. We had a deal of talk. He is a very sensible young man, very; and lord, Mrs. Frere, ma'am, what a man o' business! He was speaking of an investment for that five hundred pounds we couldn't settle about last May."

"What dodge is Max up to?" said Randal, laughing. "It is not every day that one gets a sight of the inside of the Frere mansion."

"Well, Mr. Randal," said Jimmy grave. ly, "you must allow that your cousin spares neither time nor trouble for Miss Grace."

"What's mine's my own," said Randal, significantly, with a look at his sister.

"I assure you I consider mine my own," said Grace, a little startled by his tone, as hitherto Randal had taken no heed of Max Frere's doings.

"I don't doubt it," returned Randal pleasantly; "still, exchange is no robbery, especially if you get more than you give."

"And indeed," began Jimmy, with a certain awkward energy, "some has to give all. I'm sure have been quite heart-broken about one of our clerks, a nice, steady young fellow, the son of a widow. He has an elder brother, a civil, well-spoken young man too; but as illluck would have it, he got into a wild set, and he has gambled and bedeviled himself-if you'll pardon the word - and what's worse, he ruinated his mother and brother. First he won wonderful, and was quite free with his cash; then the luck turned, and I don't know what he did not do to get hold of money. Anyhow, the poor mother had to give up every farthing she had, and now he has taken to drink!"

"What a terrible story!" said Mrs. Frere, while Grace looked at the speaker

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"What the deuce are you talking about?" cried Randal angrily. "Do you think you are haranguing this gambling friend of yours, or do you fancy I am losing vast sums nightly?"

"God forbid!" ejaculated Jimmy, wisely replying to the latter part of the speech; "I think better of you than that, Mr. Randal, knowing as you do that's it's playing with your mother's and sister's hearts you'd be."

"Then what are you preachifying for? I wish you would not take such liberties." "Randal," returned Grace, "Jimmy Byrne could hardly take liberties here; and whatever may move him to speak, I am certain the motive is sound and kind."

"By George! I think you are both out of your minds," ," said Randal, with lofty disdain, yet with a look of extreme annoy

ance.

"I am sure Randal has a perfect horror of play," observed Mrs. Frere blandlv. "Of course when he first came to London it was different; now he has more experience and Is there anything new in the papers, Mr. Byrne?" with a desperate effort to change the subject.

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'Well, no, ma'am; it's a dead time. I see Parliament is prorogued till the 5th of February; but I see there's a trial coming on between the directors of the Wilcannia and Macquarie Railway and the contractors."

"That is Maurice Balfour's line, is it not?" asked Grace.

"It is, Miss Grace dear; and I was asking about it yesterday. It seems the inspecting engineer has complained about a bridge, and says it won't stand the traffic, and the contractors say it will; and the directors want it built over again, and so on."

"I hope Balfour did not build it," said Randal, who was beginning to recover himself.

"It will be a heavy expense to all concerned," said Jimmy. These railway disputes are making quite a practice of their own. It would not be a bad line for you to take, Mr. Randal, if you do go to the bar; the precedents are fewer and fresher."

"Not I! I'll have nothing to do with these navvy fellows, who haven't shaken the yellow clay off their 'high-low' boots yet," returned Randal, still crossly.

"There's mighty pretty pickings to be made of them for all that, Mr. Randal."

"When is the trial to come off?" asked Grace, interested in everything that in the remotest way. touched her dear old playfellow.

"Next week, I think. It was postponed for witnesses or something of that kind."

"I trust nothing will come out of it to injure Maurice," said Mrs. Frere.

"I don't think there will," returned Jimmy. "It's a long time since I had a letter from him. Maybe I shall have one to-morrow, for the Australian mail is due."

The conversation then turned to other subjects, and it was not till just before his departure that Grace had a moment's private talk with Jimmy.

"Max has been telling you something, Jimmy?"

"Faith he has, me dear young lady, and it's grieved I am to hear it."

"What can I do, Jimmy?"

"I don't know; only get him out of London."

"There are gamblers elsewhere." "Ay, but it takes some time to find them."

And then they exchanged good-nights.

"It is such a beautiful afternoon, Grace," said Mrs. Frere, the day but one after this conversation; "I wish you would come out with me, and walk in Kensington Gardens. Then I want to call on poor old Mrs. Newenham. I have not been near her for a week."

"Very well, dear," returned Grace, cheerfully putting away her drawing. "But I suppose I need not go in with you to Mrs. Newenham's?"

"Not if you do not like," said Mrs. Frere, leaving the room to put on her walking-dress.

The lady in question was a decayed gentlewoman of high birth and Irish ex

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traction, who had adopted brevet rank. | brown hair with gold and threw the outShe was an object of much commisera- lines of her rich, rounded figure intotion and kindly attention from Mrs. Frere; strong relief. but she was profoundly evangelical, and bent on converting Grace from the error of her ways -a fact which made that young lady a little averse from frequent visits.

On the present occasion, after leaving her mother to mount to the "third pair front" occupied by the descendant of the "ould ancient kings of Connaught," Grace proceeded homewards, thinking, rather uncomfortably, of Randal's fresh outbreak, and meditating how she could best approach the subject without betraying Max. Deep in these reflections, she turned into the neat road, bordered by pretty villas and well-kept gardens, in which their own was one of the prettiest. It was, as usual in the afternoon, somewhat deserted, the male portion of the inhabitants being away at their respective offices, and the ladies out shopping.

Stay!" repeated Balfour, carried away by the joy of this reunion. "Ah, Grace! how shall I ever leave you again? I have borne a living death since we parted!"

"And I too!" said Grace, low but distinct-her sweet, frank eyes beaming forth to his with all the love and truth she had stored up for him.

With an indistinct exclamation of delight, Balfour caught her hands, raising them to his neck, and clasping his arms round her, he held her to him in a long, rapturous embrace -heart throbbing against heart, lips clinging to lips, with the sudden fervor which swept away all restraint and all reserve.

"My love!- my life!" said Balfour, as she gently extricated herself from him. "I did not think I should have lost the reins of my self-control so completely; but since I heard from Jimmy Byrne that you were neither married nor engaged to Max Frere, I have been dizzy with hope and doubt."

"Max Frere! What made you imag

Away in the distance, near her own dwelling, was a solitary figure coming towards her; and without breaking the chain of her thoughts, she watched its approach with a vague but increasing rec-ine such a thing?" ognition which made her heart throb and her eyes grow dim. The figure was that of a gentleman of middle height, broadshouldered, with a firm, deliberate step; then a bronzed, strong-featured face grew clearer to her anxious gaze, and next a pair of large, soft-brown eyes, all aglow with irrepressible delight as their owner sprang forward to meet her, and her hand was clasped by Balfour.

"Grace!" "Maurice!" was all they could utter: the joy and astonishment sending the blood back to her heart, and leaving her cheek so pale that Maurice thought she would faint.

"Oh, Maurice! Where has brought you back?"

how what

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"I have come to give evidence in this dispute between Darnell's firm and the company. I arrived yesterday. I saw Jimmy Byrne this morning. He told me -what gave me courage to come and see you. But you were out."

They had turned as he spoke, and walked towards the house, almost in silence, with hearts too full for words.

My mother will soon return. You will stay and see her?" said Grace, as he followed her into the comfortable, graceful drawing-room; and she stood near the fireplace, in a slant of evening light from the west window, which touched her

"Randal: his letter all but declared it. He said- but you shall see what he said; and I dreaded such an ending to our early friendship too much not to believe it. And now, what have I to offer you, my darling? My lot is, as yet, but a poor one."

And Grace, passing her arm through his in the delicious familiarity with which old friendship tempers the startling warmth of love whispered, "You have yourself— I want no more!"

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"LONDON, February — th.

"My last letter from England must be to you, dearest Frieda. I have left yours so long unanswered because I waited for time to say all my last words. Now everything is in readiness, and to-morrow we sail for the antipodes.

"I can imagine Cousin Alvsleben's horror of such an uprooting. I should have once thought the same myself, but I carry my all with me, and anticipate only what is bright and good.

"You who know my dear mother's timid nature will understand how she shrank from the suggestion of such an exile; and Randal, too, strongly objected to be torn from civilized society. But I could not leave them, nor could Maurice part with me; so he overcame all difficul

ties, and I trust and believe that he is | years hence, and then we shall see you guiding us well. His prospects as regards again. his profession are good, and he has in

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"But dear Uncle Costello! it cost me vested his small patrimony in the colony, bitter tears to part with him, for it may so Australia must be our home. Nor do be forever. Yet there is another parting I doubt that my dear friend and husband | before me to-morrow that I dread even has a most useful, if not prominent, ca- more. You have heard me speak of Jimreer before him. His peculiarly calm, my Byrne, our faithful, loving friend! unselfish disposition gives him an unusual He has all a woman's tender sympathy breadth of view and soundness of judg- and delicate tact under a quaint, unattracment that cannot fail to give his opinion tive exterior; and what he was to me in weight with his employers and fellow- the first desolation of our stay in London, workmen. There, in the large plenty and no words of mine can convey. Your roomy surroundings of a new country, a grandfather has a kindly family circle, who few inmates more or less do not create the value and cherish him, but poor Jimmy difficulties and petty annoyance which has no one to replace us - me, I may say. make them dreaded in our narrower Yet, I must leave him; and he is so good, homes. And Maurice loves my mother so utterly devoid of self that he seems and Mab for their own sakes. He rejoices only to rejoice in my happiness! All I in the thought of having dear familiar faces can do is to be the best of correspondround our hearth. ents, and try my best to lighten his loneliness. One other person I regret, to my own surprise, much more than I anticipated, and that is my cousin Max. My time, however, is nearly exhausted, and I must end. Adieu, dear, kind Frieda. Often in our fireside talk we will live over again our happy days in Saxony, and ever hold in our hearts the warmest recollection of you and yours. I sent letters yesterday to Gertrud and my uncle. My mother and Mab-who is grown out of all memory-inclose each a farewell word. Thus ends this first chapter of my life.

"Randal talks of studying for the bar in Melbourne, and also of writing a history of the colony. He will certainly be better there than in London.

"I was sorry, dearest Frieda, that I could not be at your wedding, nor you at mine; but it was well that yours was sufficiently in advance to permit Uncle Costello to be with us. How curious that both our times of trial should end together! I can well imagine your happiness, for I measure it by my own. My kind love to the dear professor, and all fond wishes for your prosperity.

"The count was looking remarkably well, and, I think, enjoyed his visit; but oh, how hard it was to bid him good-bye! He will have told you all the details of our very quiet wedding. Afterwards we made a pilgrimage to take a last look at Dungar. January is an unpromising month for such an expedition; but even winter is kindly on that southwestern coast, and we were fortunate in the weather. The dear old place looked gray and sad. I could not have borne to look at it alone, but with Maurice beside me, it was different. Together we lingered in every well-known spot, drawn nearer to each other by each freshly awakened memory, and giving many a tender thought to the dear ones we have both lost. Then we turned away, content to bid it farewell content to face our new life together the past and present of both blended in this sweetest, closest tie | of love and friendship.

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"I wish I could see you all in pleasant ¦ Dalbersdorf once more; but I will one day. We are young and strong, and a voyage to Europe will be nothing a few

"Maurice desires his warmest good wishes. Do not fail to write; and so, good-bye-a lingering, fond good-bye. "From yours,

"GRACE BALFOUR. "FRAU PROFESSOR STURM,

"Leipzig."

From Macmillan's Magazine.

RUSSIA AND THE REVOLUTION.

THE one great fact which a Western traveller has to learn in Russia is the inconceivability of a popular revolution. We who are familiar with Western political life, and derive our notions of dangerous discontent from French or even from German or Italian precedents, must forget all these things if we would understand Russia. These populations with which we are familiar are made up of men who have a political history behind them. The French peasant, conservative or revolutionary, has inherited traditions which extend from the civilized Gauls, whom

Cæsar organized into a Roman society, | dant caution, we write to our broker and through the Frankish invaders, and the direct him to sell our Russian bonds while empire of Charlemagne, and the Bour- there is yet time. All this is pure misunbons, down to the great Revolution. The derstanding. It would be, in truth, as German socialist is a man of theories, reasonable to expect a bloody revolution which generations of philosophical pro- in England, because of the attempted outfessors and students have worked out for rages at Salford and the Mansion House, him. His ancestors had to deal, as best as it is to despair of the State in Russia they could, with feudal castles, and the because the czar was murdered. And the first corporate towns, and prince-bishops, reason is in both cases plain. It is beand trade guilds; and however ignorant cause, granting the existence of ugly and he may be, he cannot have helped hearing even dangerous social elements which something of the Reformation times, and may and will do much incidental mischief, of all the frantic attempts to make the there remains, nevertheless, on the side Reich a political reality, down to the Na- of political stability, an aggregate of forces poleonic wars and the troubles of 1848. so enormous that by nothing short of a The Italian of to-day may be a beggar or miracle could these sporadic conspirators a bandit, but at any rate he has great succeed in achieving a real revolution. memories of Rome - republican, imperial, and papal; of Florence, with its polity and its culture; of Venice and the merchant oligarchy, and the struggle with the later Austrian tyrannies. Such things are the pabulum of agitation. All these men are possible revolutionaries, because they have a political past and can imagine a political future. Ideas are no new thing. Their fathers made and unmade polities, and why not they also?

But of all this there is no trace in Russia. What we sum up glibly under that name is a mass of eighty millions of men, not only destitute of ideas, but incapable of seeking them; who live on monotonously in a simple-minded acceptance of things as they are; orthodox in religion, without any thought of inquiry; docile to any master, and long-suffering under great privation; and, above all, worshipping the czar with a blind and passionate devotion as a power second only to the providence of God.

The full meaning and outcome of such a difference is not easily comprehended, until one has seen the people themselves and lived among them; and as the average tourist has not time to penetrate into Russia, we suffer from a chronic misunderstanding. Even Irish politics are little enough understood in England, where every one reads the newspaper outrages, and very few ever visit the country or attempt to make any intimate acquaintance with its peculiar people. By a similar law, from Russia we hear only the terrible rumors from time to time of plots and assassinations and deportations wholesale to Siberia; and we are naturally horrified and set a-thinking what an awful country that must be to live in, and how certainly some great catastrophe is drawing on. Whereupon, for more abun

It was with such reflections that the writer stood one evening in October on the quays of the Basili Ostrov and saw the sun, as it came out before its setting on a rainy day, light up first the gilt needle-spire of the Fortress Church, and then across the Neva the red mass of the Winter Palace and the long line of the Admiralty, and at last the flashing dome of the Isaac Cathedral. Presently, upon the background of dark cloud to the east, stood out a perfect rainbow, and rested with one foot on the fortress, where the last batch of Nihilists had just been locked away, and with the other upon the palace roofs, where the imperial flag was floating.

The friends with whom I was living were Russians, chiefly of the court party, and I found them for the most part not at all disinclined to discuss politics as among friends. My own presuppositions were distinctly against the government, and I did not hesitate to say so, and to crossexamine them accordingly; but with the friendly good nature of the Sclav, they disclaimed the least offence, and did their best to teach me the error of my ways. How far they succeeded, I cannot judge; but I will ask leave to set down the substance of their teaching for the benefit of such as have not yet gone to seek it at the fountain head.

And first, let me indicate the character and situation of my chief instructors. I shall select four, whom I shall call for convenience Feodor, Magnus, Olga, and Michael. Feodor was a pure Russian, and an excellent fellow throughout. He was the aide-de-camp and devoted attendant of one of the grand dukes. I met him in the country, where he was living in a quaint little box by the sea with his young wife and a small family, amusing himself

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